Installing WordPress is too easy using one click installers like Fantastico, Softaculous and Microsoft Web Application Gallery. However, there are times when you need to install WordPress manually especially when you are having trouble with one click installers. WordPress manual installation will help VPS customers who did not opted any control panels (cPanel or WebsitePanel) to be installed in VPS. In this article, we will describe the steps to install WordPress manually.
Step 1 : Download WordPress
- Download the WordPress package from WordPress website to your local computer.
- Unzip the downloaded file to a folder on your local computer.
Step 2 : Upload WordPress Folder to Your Hosting Account
Windows Shared Hosting and Windows VPS (with WebsitePanel) customers should extract the WordPress files to following path.
C:\HostingSpaces\user-name\domain-name\wwwroot
Windows VPS (without WebsitePanel) customers can upload WordPress package to following path though it's not essential.
C:\inetpub\wwwroot
To upload WordPress files to your hosting account, you will have following options.
IMPORTANT: If you want to install WordPress in main domain on your account and to be accessible through your main domain (i.e. www.example.com ), you need to upload the extracted files to your wwwroot folder. If you want to install WordPress on sub folder and want your website to be accessible via sub folder (i.e. www.example.com/subfolder) then you need to upload the extracted files to your wwwroot/subfolder folder.
- To upload WordPress files via FTP, refer to our FTP guide.
- To upload WordPress files via WebsitePanel File Manager, refer to knowledgebase article
- To Upload WordPress files via Remote Desktop (For Windows VPS Users Only), refer to our knowledgebase article
Step 3 : Create MySQL/MS SQL Database and User from WebsitePanel
While you run WordPress installation wizard, you will have to enter the database connection details so we will create WordPress database and user first. Follow below mentioned steps to create database and user. Keep this database connection details handy as soon you will need them.
Step 4: Configure wp-config.php file
Now, we will place the database connection details (we created in step #3) in wp-config-sample.php file. The wp-config-sample.php file can be found in WordPress folder. To modify the wp-config-sample.php file follow these steps.
- Log into WebsitePanel.
- Click the File Manager icon.
- Click on Domain name and then wwwroot folder.
- Click the folder containing the Wordpress installation and locate the wp-config-sample.php file.
- Click on Rename button and change the name of the file to wp-config.php.
- Edit wp-config.php file and look for the following information:
define('DB_NAME', 'database-name');
/** MySQL database username */
define('DB_USER', 'user-name');
/** MySQL database password */
define('DB_PASSWORD', 'db-password');- Replace database-name with the name of the database you created in step #3.
- Replace user-name with the username of the database you created.
- Replace db-password with the password of the database that you created.
- Save the changes and close the file.
Step 5: Run the WordPress Installation Wizard
Open your browser and run WordPress installation wizard. Depending on where you installed the WordPress script, you may find it at either of the following URLs.
http://example.com/wp-admin/install.php // Replace example.com with your actual domain name.
http://example.com/sub-folder/wp-admin/install.php  // Replace example.com and sub-folder with your actual domain name and sub directory name.
On successful installation of WordPress, you would see a welcome page saying that "Welcome to the famous five minute WordPress installation process!". On this page, fill up the following details and click Install Now button.
- Site Name
- Username
- Password
- Email address (login information will be sent to this email address)
- Select whether or not to have the search engines index the site
